


New Albion

by cobweb_diamond



Category: Doomsday (2008)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-24
Updated: 2009-12-24
Packaged: 2017-10-05 05:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cobweb_diamond/pseuds/cobweb_diamond





	New Albion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [seriousfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/seriousfic/gifts).



Eden had thought she was tough. She'd thought she was tough when she agreed to head across the wall into this hellhole. She'd thought she was tough when she stepped out into the courtyard, crowds baying from far above, to face that giant motherfucker in armour. She'd thought she was tough when she stood face to face with the door to her childhood home, numbers chalked onto the tenements all along the street like grave markers. But none of that had prepared for her for the moment when she opened her eyes to see that crazy bitch with the tattoos standing over her bed.

Her handgun was in her hand at once, never far enough from her bed that anyone could take it in the night without her noticing. The woman, faster than Eden remembered, caught her wrist with a snap and disarmed her with ease.

'This isn't a dream,' said Eden. Statement, not question. The air from her bedroom window was too chill, too real, and she could hear screams of laughter from outside. With a little work you could take the cannibal out of the crazy motherfucking cannibals, but you couldn’t take out the crazy. Eden knew she wasn’t asleep. When she dreamt, she dreamt of London. Or of nothing at all.

‘This isn’t a dream,’ replied the woman, and let go of Eden’s wrist. Eden snatched back her weapon and swung it round to point at her attacker, scrambling over to the other side of the bed. Just because she’d given Eden back her gun didn’t mean she wasn’t dangerous.

‘Yeah, maybe. Aren’t you dead? Or am I missing something where eating human flesh on a regular basis means you can grow back your motherfucking _head_?’ The last time she’d seen this woman, Sol’s lover, it’d been her cold and beheaded corpse riding shotgun in Sol’s car at 120mph on the road to the Wall.

‘Did you ever _see_ me eat human flesh?’ Her head was cocked to one side like an bird, faint light from outside illuminating the tattoos on one side of her face.

‘Our relationship wasn’t what you’d call extensive,’ said Eden, keeping her gun trained on its target. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Viper.’

‘Well, I know that’s a lie. I don’t tend to forget people I’ve killed.’

‘Really?’ says Viper gently. ‘Surely you must have lost count by now.’ She padded quietly round the bed. She was still wearing the ridiculous outfit she’d had on when Eden killed her, a variation on the leather-and-straps disasters all of Eden’s Glaswegian subjects seemed to favour. Eden might be their Queen now but that didn’t mean she had to dress like them. Fucking cannibals.

‘Why shouldn’t I just shoot you now?’ asked Eden, backing away to make sure she wouldn’t end up trapped in the corner.

‘Don’t you want to know how I got past your guards? And all the way up into your bedroom? Queen?’

‘I don’t give a shit.’

‘And isn’t that a lie. You certainly gave enough of a shit to stick around here. With the flesh-eaters. With the rejects. With your _countrymen_.’

‘Every person left in Scotland is still a person,’ said Eden, repeating what she’d said to the new British Prime Minister two months ago, the first and only time he’d made contact with her. ‘And I sure as hell can’t go back now.’

‘None of us can ever go back,’ said Viper. ‘You’ve made some changes around here, I see.’ She had a gun pointed at her heart, but she didn’t look afraid at all. Perhaps because she was fucking _crazy_. And supposedly, dead.

‘People do what I say now,’ said Eden. ‘I killed Sol, so I’m in charge. Are you here to avenge him?’

Viper smiled, a gold tooth flashing. ‘Hardly,’ she said. ‘He was just some... fun I had when I was waiting for the true King.’

‘Brilliant. You _are_ fucking mental. There is no “king”. I’m just the chief of several thousand lunatics lucky enough to be immune to the plague and tough enough to survive everything else. They call me Queen because they think it’s the middle ages.’

‘You are the true king,’ said Viper, still smiling. ‘Can’t you feel it? You’re here to save them. You’re going to make everything _better_.’ She rolled that last word around in her mouth as if she could taste it.

‘Every minute you keep talking bollocks, the more I want to shoot you in the face,’ said Eden conversationally. ‘Are you going to get out of my room or am I going to have to make you?’

‘You’d shoot your own sister?’ said Viper, taking another step forward.

For a moment, Eden believed it. She actually believed it. After all, who knew for certain that her mother had died that night? But no. “I’m nobody’s sister,’ she said, voice harsh in her throat. ‘Get out. I don’t care how you’re here, you crazy bitch. Just get out.’

‘The once and future king,’ said Viper dreamily. She seemed to glow in the half-light, her long hair like snakes in the darkness. ‘Returned at last in the hour of need. And wasn’t I surprised to come back as well?’

Eden never saw her move, but suddenly Viper was right in front of her. Automatically, she pulled the trigger. ‘Arthur,’ gasped Viper. Eden felt the recoil, and the hot blood that spat out as the bullet went straight through the middle of Viper’s chest. Viper looked down. ‘Not today, my brother,’ she said, blood trickling from her mouth. ‘My love. Not today.’

She slumped to the ground at Eden’s bare feet, eyes growing dull. Eden kicked the body away and pulled off her shirt, which was soiled with blood. She was shaking. That almost never happened. In a moment she’d be able to think again.

In the streets of Glasgow, her people were still awake. Dawn was inching its way over the rooftops, unhindered by smog or light pollution as it would be beyond the Wall. Things were wild here, but then Eden was wild as well. And she could be wilder than them all.


End file.
